Danny Boyle: Trainspotting 2 could star Ewan McGregor

DIRECTOR Danny Boyle is planning a sequel to Trainspotting, his landmark 1996 film about a group of heroin addicts living in Edinburgh.

Boyle, who has since won an Oscar for Slumdog Millionaire and received worldwide acclaim for directing the London Olympics opening ceremony, says a script is "in progress" based "very loosely" on Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh's follow-up novel, Porno.

Boyle says he plans to release the movie version of Porno in 2016 – 20 years after the first film – and hopes members of the original cast, including Ewan McGregor, Johnny Lee Miller and Robert Carlyle, will take part.

The only impediment is the challenge faced by Boyle's regular collaborator, screenwriter John Hodge, who has to turn Porno into a compelling script.

"There's always been this long-term plan for Trainspotting 2," Boyle told the Canadian film website, The Playlist. "If John can produce a decent enough script, I don't think there will be any barriers to Ewan or any of the cast coming back. I think they'll wanna know that the parts are good so they don't feel like they are letting anyone down."

Porno, which was published in 2002, revisits the Trainspotting characters Renton (McGregor), Sick Boy (Miller), Begbie (Carlyle) and Spud (Ewen Bremner), ten years after the events of the earlier book. Instead of heroin, the backdrop to their lives is the pornography industry.

The Guardian points out that Boyle has previously described Porno as "not as good" as Trainspotting, but the director says Welsh would "have to be on board" if the new film goes ahead.

It also notes that Boyle's enthusiasm for the project suggests he has "made up" with McGregor after the pair fell out over Boyle's 2000 film The Beach. Leonardo DiCaprio was cast as the lead in the movie, but McGregor has said he was told repeatedly the part was his. ·